LAKE CHARLES – The Northwestern State men's and women's cross country programs will get its first taste of a quick turnaround with a week to prepare for the Lake Charles Toyota Cowboy Stampede.

The meet is the third of five scheduled this season, one week after both teams competed in the first traditional team meet of the season in the Louisiana Tech Mook 4 Invitational.

The men will run a four-mile race while the women will run 5,000 meters.

Sophomore Payten Vidourek led NSU to a fourth-place team finish with his seventh-place individual finish in the 53-runner field. His 21:27.80 shaved two minutes off his 2019 time in Ruston.

He's been the top Demon in each of the first two meets this season, but NSU edged out two other teams in Ruston because of a cluster of Demons finishing in the 20s.

Xavier Wilson, Beau Melancon and Blake Glorioso finished 27^th, 28^th and 30^th, respectively, to provide NSU (110 points) enough ammunition to edge Grambling (112) and Nicholls (115) in the team standings.
Wilson (23:05.80), Melancon (23:11.10) and Glorioso (23:20.40) packed close together in a five-runner group that finished within 15 seconds of each other.

All three competed in their first traditional team meet of their NSU careers. Wilson was on the 2020 roster but NSU elected to focus on the distance portion of track and field this past spring. Both Melancon and Glorioso are first-year freshmen.

Sophomore Olivia Sipes has led the women in both races this season, including a 26^th-place finish (18:14.90) in the four-kilometer event.

Fellow sophomores Jazz Rasouliyan (29^th, 18:33.40) and Leah Thompson (40^th, 19:42.60) competed in their first traditional team meet of their NSU careers and will attempt to build on the first races this season.